The root of our automotive passion varies as greatly as the interest in the types of cars we fall in love with. For John, his roots stemmed from his Uncle Artie, who had quite a car collection. It consisted mostly of iconic muscle cars from all manufacturers as well as a handful of various sports cars. A stable with that assortment would be enough to get anyone excited, let alone a child John’s age. As impressive as his collection may have been, it wasn’t until one distinct moment that solidified it for John. It was Easter Sunday, 1992 and John and his uncle were on their way to lunch to meet up with the rest of the family. What was the vehicle of choice for a beautiful Sunday you may be asking yourself? Well it just happened to be his brand new, (quintessential) red Dodge Viper, in all of its three-spoked-wheel glory, of course. Just a beautiful day for a cruise, it was something that many of us can relate to, but it meant more to John.

During the drive, a stretch of road ahead of them shaped John’s future forever. As the highway opened up, his uncle laid in on the "go pedal." Changing the gears and beaming forward steadily like a bullet, John was overwhelmed with excitement. Now, deep into triple digits and not letting off, John’s adrenaline was firing as ferociously as all of the Viper’s ten cylinders. Without him truly understanding it, there would forever be a void in him if this emotion could not be replicated. You can say it was burned into him...literally climbing out he scorched his leg on the lake pipes. Puns aside, although he was a burned flesh-Viper exhaust statistic, that still wasn’t enough to take the moment away from him. Telling the story as vividly as the day it happened, there's no doubt in John’s mind this was that turning point.

Over the years, his passion grew stronger. Month by month, John would collect automotive magazines. He memorized the statistics of each make and model while taking notes on their styling cues. By the time he was in high school his knowledge for cars had sharpened from the periodicals and when his driver’s education teacher told the class to bring in photos of their dream cars, the next day John walked in with a photo of an E46 M3. His love for BMW was evident and the M3 was his ultimate goal. When he graduated college, the latest M3 was unattainable, but a LeMans Blue 335i wasn’t a shabby tradeoff. That car was very fast and it fulfilled his speed addiction, but even the full bolt-on, E85 drinking, N54 didn’t totally complete him. While he was coming to this realization, work was about to move him out of Long Island and into Manhattan. New York City’s mass transit is one of the largest and most efficient in the world, many natives go without vehicles, some never getting their driver's licenses at all. Owning a car in New York City is one thing, but maintaining a nice car in the city is nearly impossible. Depending on where you’re parking, you can be spending nearly a month’s rent just to keep it safe and covered. Bittersweet, the time for John to part ways with the 335i, but he promised himself he’d be back in another BMW when his living situation allowed.

Four years later, a new job opportunity came up moving him out of the city and back onto Long Island. After his daily driver was situated to get him to and from work, it was time to scratch that weekend car itch and figure out what to enjoy on his free time. He looked at a bunch of F80 M3's. Despite their addictive power, their sound and lack of connection to the road deterred him from buying one. With his youthful experience lingering in his subconscious, John found himself hunting for V8’s. The love for the M3 and hunger for displacement narrowed his searches down to the S65, BMW's second eight cylinder offered for M cars.

Like most diligent car searches, time (and a little bit of luck) is crucial to find the right one. It took John six months to locate his dream car. He found this Interlagos Blue M3 up in Michigan with only 26k miles on the clock. He bought the car sight unseen and had it shipped back to New York as a Christmas present to himself. As excellent as that was, he was far from being done with just the purchase alone. He wanted to modify it, but more importantly, he wanted to address the dreaded rod bearing issue and preserve the four-liter power plant. With the correct mindset of maintenance preceding modifications, he began to do some research. He was looking for a reputable shop to do the invasive work. Familiar with ACM's reputation on the forums during his ownership of the 335i, the volume of recommendations praising ACM for the work cemented his decision to bring the car over to NJ. He reached out to Jeff at AUTOcouture Motoring and a week after receiving his Christmas present, he booked himself an appointment at the shop to go under the knife. While this was in the works, he also inquired about getting a replica part installed that he was supplying.

Dozens upon dozens of emails back and forth with Jeff extracted the true blueprint that John had drawn up in his head for the car over the years. Jeff's collaboration took John's ideas and dialed them into a tangible work of art. Always craving the execution of a setup of this nature, in the matter of just two stages, John was well on his way into exceeding those expectations.

During the first round, all fluid services were performed to baseline himself and keep track for his records. The upgraded rod bearing job was performed along with Ohlins R/T coil overs and an Akrapovic slip-on muffler paired with a Borla quad resonated X-pipe. After receiving the car upon completion, he reached back out to Jeff immediately to get the ball rolling on round two in order to prep parts that would take weeks to get in. One of the bigger items is the supercharger. His supercharger of choice is ESS Tuning's highest trim level for the stock block - the VT2-650 kit. It was shipped directly from ESS to IND Distribution in Illinois to get custom paint work done. Rather than ESS's standard wrinkle black plenum, John’s was done in gloss black with an Interlagos Blue stripe. To slow the car down as quickly as it goes, a StopTech 60/40 big brake kit was installed. Not the standard StopTech kit, the finish reveals that these are their lightweight Trophy kit. Not only an improvement in performance, but the finish was perfectly subdued and worked well against the color of the car. HRE Classic 301 wheels in their brushed dark clear maintains that classic appearance with a slight twist on the factory setup and almost a direct match to the brake calipers.

BC Carbon front lip with IB paint matched lower, makes the carbon fiber front lip look as though it is stuck into the body. An RKP diffuser and M Performance spoiler finish off the rear end with a touch of perfectly woven carbon fiber. GTS DCT transmission software from AlpineMS sharpens the shift points and changes the attitude of the driving experience. The Awron gauge is tapped right into one of the intake runners for the most accurate, real time readings while a vivid, high-resolution screen displays various functions including one of my favorite features - the active line graph of torque and horsepower.

John’s M3 is already a monster, but he is still not finished with it yet. Although rapid, he is enjoying the build process almost as much as the car itself. For sure, this won’t be his only dream car. As his stable continues to grow in his Uncle Artie's footsteps, you can be certain he is not going to be parting ways with this one. I can already see the warm spring day coming up when John takes out his nephew into triple digits and carries on the torch of excitement and passion to the next generation.

In the early morning hours of February 17, 2017 I received the call every auto enthusiast that stores their prized possessions off site or away in storage fears most….”Your car is gone”

In my case there had been a structure fire in the building that housed my rented shop space, in an instant my fairly heavily modified ’02 Imola Red/Cinnamon E46 M3 had been destroyed, along with the contents of my shop space.

Emotions at that time ranged from devastation, to annoyance, to slightly amusing relief that everything was properly written off for insurance purposes, all the way to inspiration that came full circle when my buddy Jay and I trudged into the rubble, popped the melted doors open, and saw the glass lower with the door, indicating that there was still power in the vehicle, for us this was enough, it would have to live again….

Fast forward four months later, after a grueling insurance/properly loss litigation, the vehicle was finally purchased back from the insurance company and at new space generously loaned to me by my afore mentioned friend Jay, whom somehow always finds himself conned into involvement in my absurd projects, we were ready to give it new life.

Upon return of the car it was inspected throughly and just as we hoped, miraculously under the badly burned and smoke saturated exterior, lay relatively undamaged drivetrain, suspension, wiring, and running gear..

The next step in this project remains highly controversial: The process began to decide what we would actually do with the charred remains. For months behind the scenes Jay and I discussed options, ultimately deciding that with limited options for such a badly damaged vehicle, that we would do something, that although is popular these days, we have wanted to do for years to a car, which was to remove and modify the majority of the unibody chassis, replacing it with an exo-roll cage and rip it on the street….Hate it or love it the #mkart was underway.

Before the fire the car was what i would consider modified to a super choice “clubsport” spec. All suspension bushings were upgraded with polyurethane from AKG Motorsports along with the common rear subframe reinforcement, body mounted motorsports “quickshifter” also from AKG, upgraded engine and transmission mounts from Vibratechnics, OEM Z4m steering rack with AKG polyurethane steering coupler, KW Clubsport 2way dampers, fixed back buckets and a one off half cage from FHF Fabrication, as well as a slew of other little detail and cosmetic upgrades.

During the transformation we added a few choice goods that had been planed for the car in the upcoming season, such as Porsche 996 Brembos, Koyo aluminum rad/ Mishimoto e-fan setup, Mocal oil cooler upgrade, and a custom velocity stack/ heat shield setup final tuned by Jordan at RKTunes.

Over the next two months, Jay and I (mostly Jay) worked tirelessly, stripping, cutting, bending, welding and shaping metal to create the cage over the remaining chassis, removing over 3ft off the back off the car and affixing the rear subframe directly to the cage. Cheap mild tubing and some rough, quick fab work did the trick, this was wasn’t about fit and finish, it was all about sketchy fun and near instant gratification. I would be lying if i said we had a definitive plan before going at this, the majority of this project was improvised as we went along, however the one thing we were able to agree upon from the beginning, was that the car absolutely had to be road worthy, it simply wasn’t not funny enough unless we could use it on the street.

As a result we kept the factory front clip and headlights, as well as the a-pillars and a new piece of glass, we used universal trailer LED taillights and blinkers for the legal stuff, we even added a completely useless rear view mirror for that extra level of: “please don’t impound us bro!!!!”

It was to be a 100% street car….from my prospective this project was all about was making people smile, making the best of a bad situation and encouraging others to never give in to negativity and fear of being themselves.

After it was finished we had an absolute riot ripping around town, laying tire, shooting big flames from the short exhaust, answering hilariously confused questions, letting people sit in it, letting our friends take it out… Jay and I even drove it 4.5hrs from Buffalo, NY to Pocono Raceway for the Mpact BMW event in August 2017, as well as Canibeat’s First Class Fitment and even over the GW bridge in NYC to a Cars & Coffee event in Greenwich, CT. It was endless hilarity and hooliganism.

Most importantly this seemingly goofy project served as a good bit of personal therapy during one of the hardest years of my life. Not two weeks before the fire, my mother was diagnosed with completely unexpected terminal cancer at age 61…she lived just long enough to see the completed project on its maiden voyage, later that night sending me the last text message I would ever receive from her, reminding me how proud she was of me for not giving up, having a positive attitude and always seeing the bright side to a bad situation, values I not surprisingly learned from her, and I learned from the best.

The moral of this story/project was to inspire others and remind ourselves never to give up, and never miss an opportunity to see the brighter side of any situation.

By the time you’ll read this, the #mkart will have already been stripped of its drivetrain and suspension components, they will have gone off to live in a new project of mine, a perfect spec Alpine White/Impulse cloth SMG E46 M3, a prime candidate for a full run through and rehab, but the kart chassis still exists, and who know, you might see it reincarnated in some form soon, keep an eye out!

When it comes to grass roots drifting, the ‘Club Loose’ name carries a tremendous weight. Well known across the country, their home track resides in Old Bridge Township, NJ; better known to most as Raceway Park. Setting up dozens of events during the season, Club Loose draws a large amount of novice and experienced drivers alike. It's also frequented by Formula D pros during their off weekends or when they take extended stays around the Formula D circuit stop at nearby Wall Speedway. Level of expertise aside, there's one thing they're all doing - burning through rear tires. Frank, being in the tire industry and a savvy businessman, saw an opportunity to contribute to this community directly. His company, BC Tire, became the provider of tires for the Club Loose events, literally trucking container loads in to feed the addiction at an affordable price.

Spending more time at the track as a vendor stirred up the desire to have a dedicated car to go out and enjoy for himself. At the time he had just finished building a show oriented full OEM 1M converted 135 on air ride, but he was looking for something a little more suitable to bash around. He wanted a chassis that was more simplified and rough around the edges compared to the E82. He found himself a very modest, garage kept, 325e owned by an old lady in upstate NY. Underpowered, but a solid chassis for its age, Frank decided to reach out to AUTOcouture Motoring to improve it 'slightly'.

This is when I had first met Frank. It was a well over a year ago when he contacted me about this little project he had in mind. He informed me that his intentions were somewhat nefarious, so naturally he had my undivided attention. More displacement by means of a factory V8, full suspension conversion, brake overhaul, widened fenders, the list went on and on and the more he explained to me, the more I knew I was going to have the opportunity to be a part of something very exciting. The most enjoyable aspect about this project was that he was building this car for the sole purpose to go out and play with it. Not being an experienced driver, both Frank and the car would improve together. After dozens of emails, the day finally came and the E30 was dropped off. We began stripping the car and preparing it for the transformation. He had a plan in mind for the heart of the project and shortly thereafter he told me he sourced an M60 from California.

A couple of weeks later, there was an M60 on the back of the tractor trailer outside of the shop. After a 3,000-mile journey, the tailgate swung open and we come to find it strapped to a pallet on its oil pan solely with the transmission affixed to the valve covers above. A sandwiched M60, sitting naked on it's oil pan was exactly what we didn't want to see. Unsure of the damage done to the internals, I attempted to get a hold a Frank to let him know of our discovery. Unresponsive and in a time crunch from the delivery driver, I was in a pinch. If we signed for it, the mystery package was our problem. If we sent it back with the delivery service, Frank had no engine. Finally after multiple attempts, Frank responds….his wife was in labor....how about that for timing? He gave me the OK to refuse the engine as he was leaning our way of conservatively not rolling the dice.

Conveniently however, we had recently finished performing a manual trans swap for a California customer who bought an E39 touring on the east coast. We swapped the transmission weeks before and that customer flew out here to drive the car back to his home in northern California. That donor car, sitting outside of the shop, provided the prospect of an M62 that was ready for its new life in a smaller chassis, pending on Frank agreeing to it. As long as the M62 passed leak down and compression test Frank was in. He knew that the weight of the E30 and with the help of a welded differential out back, he wouldn't need to go crazy with an S62 or building out an M60/M62. Instead, while it was out of the car the plan was to focus on the reliability of the engine. We replaced the head gasket, timing chain, timing chain guides, all seals and hardware, full cooling system including water pump and thermostat to name a few. During the disassembly and maintenance overhaul of the M62, many of the engine components were powder coated orange. While the entire shop had a part in the build, the primary mechanic and fabricator behind it was Charlie Cisek. He was able to make all of Frank’s requests a reality and even some things Frank didn't know he wanted.

This E30 is littered with details, more hiding around this car than can be mentioned. It would be too easy to point out the orange full cage that was designed and made by Charlie, but rather the fact that a nearly 100 percent stock interior still remains with it. Full rear seats, headliner, door cards and functioning sunroof are in tact, even the door card armrests were slimmed down to fit flush above the side bars. Small riveted panels follow the contours of the dash to clean up the cuts made to accommodate the additional A-pillar area. We could mention the floor boards and how they were cut, bent and gusseted individually by hand as well as a dead pedal made from scratch to mimmic the rest of his aftermarket pedal assembly. The reinforced trans tunnel is the backbone for his right hand as the Samsonas shifter and the ASD hydro handle both mount securely there. The force of shifting gears and pulling on the hydro creates too much pressure for the thin sheet metal of the trans tunnel alone, leaving Charlie no choice, but to beef it up with thicker metal. The removal of the center console left no place for the window switches so he relocated them up top on the dash board. With the heat in tact, but air conditioning removed, the 'snowflake a/c' button has been reassigned to power up the auxiliary fan.

Amongst the cooling fan, behind the kidney grills lies a power steering cooler and external oil cooler. The source of the oil cooler is a European S62 oil filter housing chosen because of its inlet and return line ports. Charlie showed his affinity for older Japanese cars by exposing the oil cooler lines in the front bumper running from the custom mounted oil filter stand to the cooler itself. With the removal of the M20 and most of its corresponding components, the engine bay received a minor shave. The lack of room due to engine size, required many of the fluids to be relocated to Chase Bays reservoirs or Wilwood tanks. The wiring was severely slimmed down from the conventional E39 540i. Thanks to the combined expertise of Shaun Bruno, the shop foreman, the harness and connectors were carefully re pinned to utilized only what Frank needed.

Along with sorting out the wiring in general, they were able clean the engine bay up further by changing the engine wiring harness location. Typically, the engine harness leads out of bank two, across the engine bay, and into the driver footwell, but instead a block off plate was made in place of the original exit. An access panel was cut facing the firewall and the shortened wiring harness now dumps directly out of the back into the glove box area. To fit the M62 engine, the Garagistic front subframe was used. To fit it properly, the motor mount bracket on the M62 had to be modified slightly to fit. Mounting modification was also done to the transmission well. Charlie fabricated a new transmission mount to hold the 6 speed gear box underneath.

The trunk houses the ATL fuel cell on top of the deleted spare tire tray. Below the trunk floor is the perpendicular reinforcement bracing for structural rigidity and is the receiver for the custom made fuel cell brackets. This provides maximum strength to the frame and protects the E30 structurally in case he gives the wall or another car, a love tap. The other item sharing space with the fuel cell is native to the trunk, however has been relocated and reinforced as well. Charlie fabricated a battery tray and shock tower brace to combine added stiffness and for weight distribution, keeping it all neutralized and centered over the differential. With all of that extra room below, Charlie cut an access area in the quarter panel in preparation for the side exhaust. Made to be serviceable in sections, the exhaust comes off the headers with only a couple of resonators in place. The car fires up with a ferocious bark, and although it idles surprisingly quietly, the blip of the throttle is enough to make you jump even while you're prepared for it.

A reinforced and powder coated rear subframe holds a welded 2.91 differential with custom reinforced mounts and upgraded bushings. A shortened driveshaft in orange (naturally) accommodates the new length of Kassel tuned M62 to the rear end. CA Tuned coil overs were installed to keep the car flat and planted, bestowing confidence as the car gets tossed from left to right. The car has enough torque to throw itself in either direction with the tap of his right foot, but when he needs to lock up the rear wheels, he does it with the help of a Wilwood dual caliper setup.

This winter has brought on the second iteration of the M62E30. This season, Frank will continue to get more experience under his belt and push the car further towards its limits. This project is not over as Frank has continued plans for the future, but the important thing is that whether he's locking in lines or breaking it, he's shredding tires and putting a smile on his face.

For more photos of the build, click on the gallery below for some of AUTOcouture Motoring's documentation.